The 10 Most Embarrassing Golden Globes Moments

Let’s just admit it: the Golden Globes are about the awards as much as Thanksgiving dinner is about giving thanks—really, everyone’s just waiting for that special time of night when drunk Uncle Mel gets up on the table, waves a cross in the air, and denies the Holocaust. After all, it’s these Golden memories that stay with you long after you’ve woken from your open bar-fueled daze to ask yourself how exactly Nine ended up winning Best Musical or Comedy.

So, we here at Vanity Fair would like to dredge up the past and list the 10 moments from the Golden Globes your Hollywood family members desperately wishes you could forget.

In case you were tempted to think the Golden Globes were about awards, Chicago Hope’s Christine Lahti shattered all such illusions in 1998 when Michael J. Fox announced that she had won best actress in a TV series, only to learn Lahti was in the bathroom. Had the notoriously free-flowing alcohol taken its toll on Lahti? Perhaps to distract the audience from speculating, Robin Williams jumped on stage and filled the booze-y silence with Southern cousin jokes until the winner arrived. Renee Zellweger also pulled a “Lahti” in 2001 when she won for Nurse Betty, but to be fair, not even the Hollywood Foreign Press saw that award coming.

Getting stuck in the “powder room” in the late 90s had a whole different meaning for Colin Farrell, judging from the remarks he made before handing out the foreign film award at last year’s ceremony. After sniffling as he announced the winner, Waltz With Bashir, Farrell made sure to clarify that he was suffering a common cold, not a crippling cocaine addiction, like “back in those days.” Kudos to Colin for overcoming, though rumor has it he later ‘shroomed in the green room while watching a screener of Bashir.

It wouldn’t be a dysfunctional family dinner without incoherent, racially-charged non-sequiturs, and 2009 was a good year for that, too, thanks to the indecipherable ramblings of gifted comedian/broken chatbot, Tracy Morgan. After 30 Rock won for best television comedy, Morgan held the award aloft, claimed himself as the face of post-racial America, and called out Cate Blanchett. Cognitive scientists still debate whether the rest of his speech was in a human language.

NBC would probably like to forget 2009 altogether since it was also the year Mickey Rourke’s teary, Chihuahua-laden victory speech for The Wrestler was marred by Darren Aronofsky’s free-flying bird. The director playfully flipped Rourke a congratulatory middle finger, thus waking the mythical beast known as the F.C.C. from its enchanted cave and forcing it to slap a fine on NBC greater than Rourke’s previous paycheck.

But Aronofsky can’t raise a middle finger to Jack Nicholson’s rear end. Nicholson's a virtual cottage industry of Globes moments. His response to getting the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award was to faux-moon the audience. Then in 2003, after winning for About Schmidt he went on a Morgan-worthy rant, calling Kathy Bates, “The Bates Motel” among other things. And Nicholson’s not one to play coy at the podium like Colin: he freely copped to popping some valium.

No list of Globe-themed embarrassments would be complete without a mention of 2008 when the Writer’s Guild of America—or “ungrateful commie agitators” as the M.P.A.A. refers to them whenever their contract is up—actually went on strike. Having Mary Hart announce names from a list to a hall full of sober journalists seems antithetical to the very debauched identity of the Globes. But then again, even alcoholics have moments of clarity...

...followed immediately by a hard fall from the wagon, such as Ricky Gervais's sauntering on stage with a beer in 2009. Like the drunk cousin who lets the family's dirtiest cat out of the bag when he reveals that you're adopted, Gervais saluted Kate Winslet's long-awaited win for The Reader by pointing out a piece of time-honored wisdom that he and Kate had already bandied about on Extras: do a Holocaust film, win an award. Gervais's award for his awards honesty? He gets to host this year's.

For every jovially drunk cousin at any dinner, there's a creepy Uncle Ike, played in 2006 by Isaac Mizrahi. The designer capped off a virtuoso display of lady-leering on the red carpet (peering down Teri Hatcher's dress, asking Eva Longoria about grooming habits down under) by groping a stunned Scarlett Johansson. While technically taking place outside the hallowed Beverly Hilton Hall, Mizrahi's audacity nonetheless ranks high on the list, if only because he managed to leave Ryan Seacrest blissfully speechless.

Still, the classic Globes moment belongs to none other than the idol of Hollywood's Golden Age herself, Elizabeth Taylor. The chronically married Grand Dame bungled nothing less than the announcement of the best motion picture drama award. Looking like she was sent into deep-space orbit by Molotov-drug-cocktails Michael Jackson would have envied, Taylor prematurely opened the envelope before announcing the nominees, stopped only from revealing the winner by America's chagrined paterfamilias, Dick Clark. Quoth Cleopatra: "And the winner is ... it's flashing 'envelope.'" Nobody does it better.

Well, except for The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra. If you ever wonder how demented family traditions get started, you have to pry the scotch from Grandpa's hands and ask him yourself. The whole reason the Globes exist as the boozy, star-filled public spectacle we TiVo today is because, back in 1958, Old Blue Eyes, along with fellow Ratpackers Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin, got tired of that whole boring part where they announce the winners. Sufficiently soused, the three jumped on stage with cigarettes and high-balls in hand, and hi-jacked/hosted the then modest awards show. The crowd loved it, and over 50 years later, the Globes have never looked back.

Christine Lahti, best actress in a drama series, who was temporarily indisposed to receive her award, in 1998. Photograph by Steve Granitz/WireImage.